Suffer In Silence
by Dudemar
Summary: A nameless scumbag wanders into the town of Silent Hill and faces his past deeds. Will he find redemption or embrace his demons? Pretty please with sugar on top, read and review.
1. ROAD WORK AHEAD

Suffer In Silence: A Silent Hill Fan Fiction

By Dudemar

Chapter 1: ROAD WORK AHEAD

I take a long drag on the cigarette I just lit and try like hell to keep my balance while I'm walking. I hold it in and exhale, nearly blowing out all the air in my lungs in the process. My head starts to go light as I taste the smoke and it works its way through my system. To think somebody left a six cigarettes lying on the ground is just beyond me. I've been wandering around for what seems like a whole day, but I only just now really take a look at my surroundings. It's a long stretch of lonely country, just some grassy hills and nothing more.

I hate the country. Nothing but boring farmland and the occasional gas station. The strength in my legs start to regain a little and I pick up my stride. I woke up in a ditch with a pounding headache and since then I've been walking, not giving a shit where I'm going. At least I still have my lighter. The last thing I can remember is putting my clothes on. Blue jeans, black t-shirt, dusty brown work shoes, and my light black coat with an inside pocket.

Those are the best clothes in my whole collection. Whenever I try to think about something else my head just hurts even more. So then I just concentrate on the walk. A dull shade of gray clouds stretch across the horizon and coat the skies, blotting out the sun. It's crappy weather to be sure, probably rain on the way, but I'm used to it.

The wind picks up, feeling like cuts on my face and my coat starts to flap. I take another drag on the cigarette and press on. A veil of mist starts to roll in ahead of me and I can't make out what lies beyond me. What the hell did I do last night? Probably something drunken and nasty, as usual. The wind dies down but it gets colder as I walk through it.

Shuddering from the cold, I pull up my collar and put my hands in my pockets. The ground beneath my feet becomes harder and more level as I take more steps. No more rolling hills, I think to myself. I walk right into the thick of the gray haze of mist and I can hardly see in front of my face. All I do is keep walking and watching the smoke from my cigarette billow in the air and then disappear.

"Shit" I hiss the word out between my gritted teeth. The first thing I did when I woke up was look for my wallet. It was still in my pocket but it had none of my cards, ID, or money. I'm a paranoid man and right now I can feel my guts tie down and my eyes won't shut. Logically, I should be a dead man--who gets robbed of their money, dumped in a ditch and lives? Nobody I know.

You hear about things like that all the time on the news or in the papers. Some poor sap wanders around, goes to the wrong places, and ends up not getting heard from again. I'm still alive though. Lucky, lucky moron. They're usually shot because some junky or would-be street thug wanted what little money they had on them. Most times you don't even hear about it until weeks, months, or years after the fact. Probably been dumped into a river.

Sometimes they're not even found, they just disappear without a trace. You could get mutilated while you were on a midnight stroll and nobody would ever notice or care. It's morbid, but I think it's an interesting subject. Those cards with missing people on them that you get in the mail and always throw into the garbage? I keep those. On the cards its almost always two family members missing at the same time.

I lose myself in that topic for a long time. The mist lifts a little and I can see a highway to the right of me, and across it is a rest stop. My stomach loosens its grip and I jog into the bathroom. It's a little shithole with slimy water all over the place, fractured mirrors, and a thick stench of fresh urine hangs in the air. I take what seems to be the world's longest piss and go to wash my hands. The only thing that comes out of the faucet is a stream of black goo.

I step outside and look at the empty parking lot. The mist turned into a heavy fog and I can barely see in the distance. The only thing I can make out is a large, orange sign that reads "ROAD WORK AHEAD, 1MILE." The only choice seems to be keep walking. I can't find a phone anyway. Normally I'd worry about oncoming traffic, but I can't hear a thing and the entire place looks desolate. Good, I like having places all to myself anyway.

The muscles in my legs have loosened up and stretched out. That tense, painful feeling my legs had a while back were gone and I picked up my walking stride even faster. I could see the orange cones and barrels up ahead. A large, shapeless figure comes into view beyond the cones. It hums mechanically and spits smoke into the air. It's at least ten to fifteen feet, I'd say. I know exactly what do to. I make a quick run up to it and hop on. Somebody forgot to turn the damn thing off when they left work.

It's a small bulldozer, used for everyday construction jobs like building roads or tearing down a one-story home. The yellow coloring is rusted into a dark red color scheme and some of it's so scratched up that you can see the gleaming metal underneath. I'm used to much larger ones, but it's basically the same variety. Not a whole lot new to know. The only items left in the bulldozer is a picture of a portly, bearded man holding a baby and a spilt Styrofoam cup of coffee.

I take a deep breath and a small jump to the ground, feeling my feet absorb the shock and my knees bend. It only takes a few seconds for my feet to go numb as I straighten up and arch my back into its normal, sagging walking position. The road's rough, unfinished, and uneven. I kick loose gravel around with every step I take. Ash falls from my cigarette and I try to piece things together. The roads to and from Brahms aren't exactly swarming with activity, but they have at least a few cars buzzing by.

My head might be screwed up, but I still think it's a week day. Wednesday, maybe? No, that was yesterday. I remember checking my alarm in the middle of the night. A town ought to be nearby, at least something. Something can't be far away. I'm a fast walker, so the mile doesn't last long. Another orange sign comes up, "END OF ROAD CONSTRUCTION." Behind it is another sign, a large green one that reads "WELCOME TO SILENT HILL POP:" The population number is obscured by unreadable graffiti written in dark red spray paint.

The blood rushes to my head and I can hardly think anymore. My legs go wobbly and I stumble onward.


	2. SIMPLE LITTLE TOWN

Chapter 2: SIMPLE LITTLE TOWN

Silent Hill. I can only vaguely recall the last time I heard about the place. It's a picturesque, tightly-knit community where everybody knows everyone. A place full of friendly faces and a few attractions such as Taluca Lake, Lakeside Amusement Park, and some hotels and restaurants. Either I made that blurb up or it was in some brochure I read a long time ago--I'm not sure. The fact is it's a boring sprawl of a town with nothing interesting to do, but it keeps on with the charade that it's a resort community so it can net some dumbass yuppies into helping with the local economy.

Or at least that's my take on what I remember from the town. Silent Hill is the closest town to Brahms, but I've only been to Silent Hill twice in my life. The first time was when I was a little kid, barely 13, going to a trip there with my aunt and uncle because my parents didn't want to deal with me for a while. We stayed at a cheap little hotel that faced parallel on the opposite side of the lake with the big, expensive hotel. The first day they took me to the amusement park. It was an old park, with only a few rides scattered around the grounds.

It had a Ferris wheel, a roller coaster, and a broken-down carousel. The rest of the park consisted of over-priced hot dog and cotton candy stands and a "guess your weight" stand. I spent the rest of the vacation at the lake. It stretched far and wide into the horizon, the other hotel on the opposite side of us looking like a dot. While there were times I'd simply sit on the dock and watch the sun set, I was mostly swimming. It was a natural, salty lake where you could fish and nearly drown trying to reach the bottom of the lake.

Then I remember, on the last day of the trip, when I was swimming and my uncle came alongside me in a paddleboat. He chuckled and told me something about watching out for the monster at the bottom of the lake. Asshole. It's stupid things like that, that people say to you as a kid that rattles you. Of course there's no monster in the lake, but when you're swimming in there and can't see anything, your imagination starts to take over.

A fish darts by, a twig snags you, or your legs brush by seaweed. Then you think there's some shapeless thing swimming around you just waiting to drag you down for no reason at all. Strange memories come back to me as I shake my head and try to walk into the town without falling on my ass. The feeling's a tad familiar, like being drunk but not being inebriated enough to where you can't feel the pounding in your skull. The second trip to Silent Hill wasn't as joyful, and speaking of which, was relatively recent.

It was maybe two years ago and it started when I went to a bar in Brahms that I'd never been to before. It was a little more upscale than my normal hangout, a place playing poppy music and where everyone's eyes are either glued on the plasma screen playing NASCAR or ogling college girls. You know the place, right in the center of town instead of down an alleyway. I ordered some fruity drink that I can't identify with a decorative plastic sword sticking out of it and it tastes more like a strawberry than a stiff drink.

I order a no-name brand bottle of whiskey and get to work on killing my brain cells. My limit is usually six shots, but today I was in a shitty mood and felt like pushing it. The alcohol works its way into my system fast and I feel like either screwing or fighting. I turn to the nearest thing in a skirt and long hair.

"Heyy--" I slur the words and almost fall off my stool.

"I'm with somebody." She cuts me off even before I finish the sentence. She's a plain looking woman with a ponytail of black hair.

"No need to get…uh, rude. I was just wondering if--"

"Look, I'm sure you're a nice guy but…"

"I'm not fuckin' finished. I was just wonderin', if you were wonderin' and. Lemme see…" I take a moment to glance at my hands and see that I'm still pouring shots and drinking between sentences. The glass overflows with the clear drink and I spill it on my pants. Some frat type with a backwards hat walks up to us and the two leave.

"I said, hey, about that thing?" I stand up and it takes a little effort to keep my legs balanced.

"Piss off." the guy says, walking away holding his woman. I take a moment to think of something clever back.

"Hey, I got a bunch of photos of your mother naked fucking my dog in the trunk of my car, wanna see 'em?"

To be fair, that's not exactly true. I didn't drive my car, I walked. The guy turns around and gets right into my face. I stumble back and put my fists up wobbling from side to side. My strategy is to make myself look drunker than I am. Right now I'm only relatively buzzed. He glances back at his girlfriend who shoots back a scolding look and a sigh. He walks out, muttering something about cooler heads prevailing. I watch the two of them walk across the street to another bar. Silly bastards didn't give me any satisfaction at all.

Something on the next stool catches my eye and I pick it up. It's a pair of car keys and I put two and two together with the parked car that has a college sticker on its side. I didn't have to take the car, I think to myself as I speed down the highway out of Brahms, but it felt like the most logical progression of the night's festivities. I dumped the car into a ravine thirty miles away from Silent Hill and just took a bus there. I only spent two days bumming around the place.

Those two days are just a haze to me, I can only remember one thing that happened there. I was walking in the park and come on some grungy homeless man with no teeth and only one arm. He pulled a thick book out of his ratty, black trench coat and held it up high over his head as he shouted to those passing by.

"You may take pity on me because of my disheveled state, you may ignore me because of the things I say, and you may even fear me…but I say unto you all to heed my words and listen closely!" he smacks his lips and gulps, continuing on with the tirade.

"I am an evangelist, sent to tell you all of the new doctrine. The new bible. Believe me because I have seen it, the dark world you can only imagine in your dreams. I have lived through it, and I have been chosen to spread the word! And the mark. The mark of the new god, your new messiah. The days of Jehovah are coming to an end and I beg you all--believe in the new word and tell the rest of the world and you will be saved. A path to paradise will open unto the masses."

A cop talks to the man in a soothing voice, but he keeps yelling at everyone in the park. The cop grunts and yanks him by the arm, practically dragging him by the ground as he keeps preaching. The bum's eyes shift to me and his voice goes into a low pitch, barely audible.

"You know what I saying. You are…one. Like me…" His eyes roll up into his heads and he starts convulsing. The cop props him on the ground and starts yelling at people to get medical help. I just stand and watch as foam froths from his mouth and his life leaves him. I'm still watching as he's taken away in a body bag. I think I remember seeing him on one of those missing cards. These are things I haven't thought about in a long time, and random thoughts just come to my head as I make my way through the foggy street.

Silent Hill. It's just like any other small time town in America. There's really nothing to see that you haven't seen before.


	3. ADDICTIONS

Chapter 3: ADDICTIONS

"Fucking phones! THIS IS BULLSHIT!" I scream and rip the telephone off the wall, slamming it hard onto the checkered floor and watching its plastic shell peel off and some internal parts fly out. That's the fourth phone I've checked in this town that hasn't worked. Right now I'm in some large general store that's open, but nobody's around. I catch my breath and smooth my rough hair. This town is as empty as they come.

I figure it must be some kind of holiday, town meeting, or other annoying function. The only thing you can hear outside is your own footsteps and the occasional wind whipping through the streets. Cars seem stranded everywhere and objects are just left alone. And I'm starting to get worried about the fog—it doesn't show any signs of letting up. It's a general store with that old timey kind of ambiance with no security cameras and 99 cent specials.

The only source of light in the entire store comes from the windows—you can only really see two of the aisles. The rest are cloaked in darkness. It's just row after row of hardware and groceries. I take my time strolling through each aisle and examining each one's contents. Instant noodles, canned beans, screws, bolts…nothing seems to be stocked with any kind of system or consistency in mind.

All the hardware and tools are unidentifiable to me—each one complex and looking very much without any practical purpose, save for a row of hammers. There are five of them and they're all cheap-looking, with dents and rust all over each one. I pick one up and feel that its handle is rough, unfinished wood. I swing it around jokingly and smile. I have the whole store to myself, at least until someone comes by and sees how much of an idiot I'm being. It's amazing the types of things you do when you're bored.

I throw one of the cans of beans in the air and swat at it, missing it and nearly falling forward. I go to pick it up and hear something clack in the back aisles. In the dark aisles where I can't see.

"Yo?" I ask in the general direction of where the noise came from. I take my time walking back there with the hammer raised. Someone's watching me, I know it. Somebody's looking at me from the shadows all wide-eyed and snickering about what they're going to do to me when I have my back turned, I can feel it. I can hear my heart beating irregularly and a sharp pain goes through my chest.

I watch my feet cross over from the light and into the dark aisles where I can barely see a thing. The shelves look like they're towering over me with all of the items in them are just formless sights. I stand in the middle of where I think the noise came from and a large can of paint rolls at my feet. I chuckle. This is always the "fake scare" in a part of a horror movie where the protagonist thinks they're safe, turn around, and get the bejesus scared out of them by a deranged killer or a monster of some kind.

But this isn't a movie and I'm not stupid. There is somebody in here with me. I spin around and swing the hammer. I hit absolutely nothing. So I turn around and take one more look at the paint can. My eyes shift to a corner and I see something pulsating in an odd way. It's a huge round chunk of flesh, with a tiny head attached to it convulsing in horrendous ways. It doesn't have any limbs to it and only has a vague outline of what a face should be, looking to me like a grotesque and painful grimace.

I rub my eyes hard, nearly scratching them and look back at the corner. There's nothing there. My eyes get fucked up sometimes and I get confused. Things will sometimes look weird to me and a little unfocused. My heart lets up on the adrenaline and I breath normally. Sometimes my sight goes a little grainy, it's nothing to be worried about. I make a mental note to look into getting my vision tested when I get back to Brahms.

Yeah, that's the mission, I tell myself. When I make it back to Brahms I'll track down the bastard that took my money and cards, or at least have the police do it. They've probably spent it all right now on liquor and hookers. I make my way back into light and to the entrance of the store. The fog's still thick, but now snow flakes are falling. Before I open the door I turn my attention to a torn poster that I hadn't noticed before.

It has a gorgeous, thin woman in a classy black dress giving a smoldering look. The part of the picture where her hair is supposed to be is ripped of. It reads "BE SOMEBODY. Red Rose Perfume." I stare into her green eyes for a moment and continue to walk out. I watch my breath freeze in the air and see it disappear. The odd thing is I don't feel the cold. Brahms isn't really a cold place, but it does rain quite a bit. Most people think that Brahms and Silent Hill are the same type of place—but they're wrong.

Brahms is pretty close to Silent Hill, that part's true, but a decent amount of hills (they're large, but not mountains) and overpasses separate the two. Silent Hill got the better end of the deal with a quaint piece of Americana. Forest, flat land, and a lake…everything to make it a semi-desirable place to live. Brahms on the other hand has shit. Unlike Silent Hill, Brahms is a small city that has all the appeal of a getting smashed in the face with a tire iron. Every major road, route, and highway runs through it so your only hope to get anywhere on time is to walk or take the subway.

Brahms is a depressing place with no where to go and nothing to do, so most people wonder why anybody would live there. There aren't that many job opportunities there, the only thing you can do for nightlife is drink at a seedy bar, so why? A friend, well…not really a friend but more of an acquaintance at my job asked me why I live in Brahms. He was a nice guy that was always smiling, even though I never once smiled back at him and I can't say I cared much for his breath. He yakked about his wife was born in Brahms and when they were living it up in some big city she just had a sudden urge to settle down there.

So they cashed out of everything and got set up in Brahms. Then he stopped smiling and turned his head away from me when he spoke, being very about not making anymore eye contact with me. This was the "sad part" of the story where times got tough for him. He got into some heavy shit like drinking, drugs, and fooling around behind his wife's back. He told me this story a lot, but I was always too polite to tell him I heard it before. He gave a forced chuckle and said when you get a certain age you just get tired of normal life and want some action.

"Sometimes you just get really pissed that the man upstairs didn't give you any real excitement in your life and you don't have any interesting stories to tell the grandkids." He'd tell me with a toothy grin.

Back to the story, his wife divorced him and got just about everything including custody of the children who are now grown up. Child support and his addictions weren't very kind to his bank account and soon enough he had to take a crap job just like me. Then he'd look back at me, his shame gone for the time being, and start acting chipper again.

"You know, son, I got clean of all that crap now. I called her once or twice to see if she'd have another go at the marriage. She told me it wouldn't be worth it and she's seeing somebody else." He starts leaning in close to me now.

"Well, hey, shit happens." I respond, throwing out a random response.

"It took a lot of help, and I'm a big enough man to admit that. You gotta fight every single day until you get rid of that shit from your system. It's like everyday you wake up and, boom, your demons are staring you right in the face telling you to do this and that. It's hell. Sometimes you just gotta tell your bad side to fuck off and shake it off for the rest of the day."

"No offense, but what does this have to do with me?" I blurt out while sipping some stale coffee.

"I was like you a long time ago. Not giving a shit no matter what. But lemme tell you a few years down the road and you'll be paying for what you're doing now."

"For Christ's sake, Stan, what the hell is your point?"

"My point is…sober up, 'cause believe me I have been where you have been."

"I don't have a drinking problem."

"It's never too early to quit, is all I'm saying." He gives me a serious look and then walks away, leaving an AA pamphlet on the table.

Good, sweet, gentle Stan the preacher man. He'd give those out to everybody else on the crew trying to get them to quit drinking no matter if they actually were alcoholics or not. He didn't particularly care either way. I don't even bother reading the article, I just tear a little piece of it off at a time and put it in my empty beer bottle until our break's over. Which reminds me, I wonder if their local bar is in the same state. I take out another cigarette and light it up, drawing a heavy breath. I can't be the only one here.


	4. A MONSTER IN THE MIST

Chapter 4: A MONSTER IN THE MIST

I never did get around to answering that question. The next day Stan came back to me and finished the conversation, which was his usual custom since he'd forget every damn thing and only now remembered he was going to ask me why I lived in Brahms. It was break time again and I just sat there for a while staring at my stale coffee, the same type of stale coffee I had a thousand days before. I'd been asked simple questions like that before many times in my life, but I just stared into the cup and really thought about.

Stan said he didn't have much of a choice since he pissed away most of his money and just didn't have the funds to leave, but he said he just didn't get me. He said I could pack up, leave, and go anywhere no problem. Just leave everything behind and start anew. It's not as if the thought hadn't crossed my mind before, it was only now that I started to really kick around the idea in my head.

"So…then why the hell am I here?" I thought to myself.

Before I could come up with a plausible answer our break was over and Stan never brought up the subject ever again. Good, old forgetful Stan.

I took the small stub of a cigarette out of my mouth and tossed it to the ground, glancing at it and seeing the flakes of snow slowly putting it out. I'd walked for as many miles as I could stomach and finally came across something semi-useful: a car with the keys still in the ignition. How very convenient, I think to myself. The glass shatters and pieces of it fall out as it succumbs to the sideways blow of the hammer. I'll send them an IOU. While brushing some of the glass off the door, I unlock it and try to kickstart the engine.

No luck, though. The car doesn't even respond at all—no sounds, no battery trying to kick on, nothing. Before I kick the door open I take a quick look at the inside of the car. It's very nice, it's got that new car smell and a luxury feel to it. I tug on a plastic knob in the car and the hood pops open with a small thud. Before I take a look at it I spin around 360 degrees to make sure nobody's watching me. The checkup's relatively thorough, I take a look at everything and leave no piece of machinery unchecked.

All the fluids are there, nothing's out of place, and everything should work. It's just one more thing in this town that make's my head hurt and doesn't make a damn bit of sense. I slam the hood and make my way back to the car, nearly taking off the fucking door while I'm closing it.

"HEY! This is 107.9, the Mountain Bear. All the classic rock you love!" The radio belts out and I jump, practically smashing my head into the roof. It's loud and obnoxious—I must've hit the on button by accident. It takes a few seconds for my heart to stop beating so fast and for me to calm down. I just slump down in the seat with my eyes closed, trying to get a grip.

"Up ahead we have some Rolling Stones, Led Zep, and of course The Eagles, but right now we have to take a break." The DJ is an annoying bastard with a high-pitched voice. I'll stick around for the Stones, but that's it. If the radio's working then the car should. I try the ignition and start pumping some gas via the pedal, but nothing happens.

If the car isn't working then the radio shouldn't be on. I reach over and turn it off, but it stays on.

"Fuckshit." I mumble incoherently to nobody. I try flipping on and off, turning up and down any buttons I see in a manic frenzy. The volume doesn't change, the dial remains on the station, and it won't shut off. I just sit back and listen, for the time being, to the commercials.

"Ladies…are you tired of perfumes that don't deliver on their promises? Does your perfume repel men instead of attracting them?"

"Yeah, I can really relate to soaking myself in shitty oils to get somebody's attention." I sarcastically reply to the radio, playing with the air freshener which is an eight ball dangling from the rearview mirror on a thin piece of string. The voice is a saleswoman speaking in a sultry voice. I tune out the rest of the pitch until the very end.

"Pick up Red Rose perfume. Be somebody."

I turn my attention to the ashtray and find it's filled with assorted pennies, nickels, and quarters which I quickly snatch and pour into my coat pocket. You never know. Just as one of the songs starts up with a '70s guitar riff, the radio cackles and the station fades in and out of the song. I furrow my eyebrows in annoyance and pound on the radio. The static picks up in volume, drowning out the station and it starts to hurt my head.

"Piece of shit." I say as I open the door and walk out. Something yanks at my leg and I fall flat on my face. It's something slimy with a strong grip. With a heave of strength, I shift my weight so I'm on my back to look at whatever's holding me. My eyes go wide and bloodshot with fear as I see something slithering underneath the car. Another long, disfigured arm shoots out at me and grabs my other leg pulling me closer and closer. The only real feature I can make out is the pair of hands are thin and bony, with each finger at least twice as long as that of a human being's.

I grip the pavement, barely holding on by my fingernails but the thing keeps pulling on me. Whatever's under there is way too strong to be a normal animal and it groans at me. It seems like all the bad noises that make your head ache and your nose bleed all rolled up into one. It's somebody scratching a chalkboard, banging cymbals right next to your ear, your dog whimpering in pain, a hungry animal—and there's nothing you can do to drown it out. But I have to block it out for the time being, try not to care that its loud moans sound like its in pain or its growling because it wants to kill me.

I just remember the hammer and furiously swat at the hands. The sound the thing makes doesn't change, but its hands loosen up and I know I'm hurting it. Good. I can't tell if the creature's bleeding—its entire body is made up of a dark red color. The long arms retreat back into the darkness of the bottom of the car and I scramble to my feet as fast I can, just barely keeping balance as I go into a ready position with the hammer raised up. The thing crawls out from underneath the car looking like some demonic snake writhing out from a rock to fight. It has the overall appearance of a man, but it's not.

It's a cruel joke of one, like a childish blueprint for one that God tossed away. Its arms are so long that they touch the pavement, the right part of its head is elongated while the other side is caved in, it has no face, and its upper body seems to be disjointed. Its ribcage sits to the far right of its abdomen. It looks as if somebody just took this thing and stretched it completely out of shape like some toy. There is no possible way for this thing to be alive in that state, but I see it right in front of me. It shouldn't exist, it's just some demonic vision that I dreamt up. I rub my face and eyes hoping the nightmare in front of me disappears. It doesn't, it just lurches forward at me.

I lie to myself that it isn't real when all of my senses know damn well that it is. I tell myself that it's just my demented imagination, actively seeking out and telling me things are real when they're not. One of the oldest clichés is that it's scarier when you can't see what's coming to kill you, but it's only true half of the time. There are times when you see something so horrible that it makes your most haunting nightmares look like nothing. I can feel it walk towards me, its feet thudding on the ground in unison and I can see its breath chill in the air just like mine. Under other circumstances, I might sympathize with it.

How would you want to walk around as an abomination? But the self-preservation instincts kick in and I can't indulge in that kind of thinking, it's fight-or-flight. I block out the complex thoughts about how this thing can possibly exist and whether or not I should kill it. It walks in range now and I bring the hammer down with all of the force I can muster on its skull. It buckles under the weight of the blow and falls face-first onto the ground. The radio starts to play one of the songs, but then it just goes to more static. The thing groans in what I assume in pain and pushes itself off the ground. I bring the hammer down once again and something inside the being's head gives.

It cracks and makes a sickening snapping sound. This time the thing falls to the ground harder with blood pooling around its head. In the background, I hear the static dying down until it finally stops and the radio station comes in clearly.

"And that's the forecast for today. I feel sorry for anybody who isn't enjoying the pleasant weather today, and it looks like that weather will continue for quite some ti—" I limp over to the car and break the radio with the hammer, watching it short out and the plastic falling off.

I steady myself with one hand on the car and the other clutching my chest. My heart won't stop beating so erratically—I'm so scared right now, but my main fear is a stroke or a heart attack. I turn my gaze away from the apparition's corpse leaking gooey blood on the road and try like hell not to think about it at the moment. I have to maintain some semblance of composure, or at least sanity. Just breath deeply and regularly, just stay calm. My eyes shift upwards to the gray sky, watching the snow flakes slowly float to the ground. It's a soothing enough image that I can feel some of the adrenaline balancing in my system, at least enough for me to not worry so much. 

My heart slows down, each loud beat becoming fainter as the minutes tick away. I'm assuming they're ticking away since I didn't take my watch with me. I have to practically pry off the hand on my chest with the other one, and I now can face the corpse once more. I'm pretty sure it's dead, but why take a chance? I raise the hammer one more time and bring it down on the thing's head, watching it burst apart in a grisly spectacle. Only black goo seeps from its head.

"Oh, Christ!" I gag and feel that my guts are pushing something back up my throat. I drop the hammer, hearing it clack and lean forward—puking a stream of chunky, orange vomit. After barfing the entire contents of my breakfast and then some, I pick up the hammer and walk cautiously through the street. When I reach the corner, I hear something and stop.

"Nice one, ma-a-a-a-a-a-n-n! You clocked 'em good-like." It's a raspy voice coming from what I think is a storm drain next to me. I don't see anything there, but I can still hear the voice.

"Who…are you?" All of a sudden it feels like I've had all my strength and energy sucked out of me that I think I might fall over.

"That's really up to you-u-u-u-u." The voice sounds like its vocal chords have been punctured, resulting in a hissing sound for some of its words.

"I don't feel like…bullshit right now, man. Give me some answers."

"For starters, there's a 50/50 chance I'm just a voice in your head. Or maybe I'm some stupid old man that got caught in this here storm drain. Or maybe…"

"You're in my head then?"

"I never said that. S-stop putting words in my mouth. I s-said I COULD be just a figment of your imagination."

My vision goes blurry again and everything seems more surreal than it already is.

"Then by…by that rationale, I can shut you the fuck up whenever I want, right?" 

"Once again, that's up to you-u-u-u. Maybe that thing you just killed is also just another product of your diseased mind."

"I'm not insane. I'm just…confused at what's happening."

"So you're telling me, a disembodied voice coming from the sewers, that you're not insane? After you killed something that looks like it came right out of someone's nightmarish psyche that it isn't your mind that's broken?"

"There's an explanation for this. I—" I want to say something intelligent, something that puts all of this in perspective, but I can't. I'm talking to somebody I can't see in an empty town where a monster lives, probably more of them waiting to kill me. I can't think of any plausible defense.

"Then what are the alternatives?" I ask, laughing a bit that I'm questioning what seems to be an imaginary friend.

"There are only two others. One: you're bouncing off the walls in some asylum dreaming this whole thing up. The other one is very s-s-s-imple—don't trust your eyes. It's possible you're just running around a populated town screaming and bashing people in the skull with a hammer, ranting about how they're monsters and that you have to kill them."

"That's…a pretty sucky way to start explaining things."

"Then you think all this is real?"

"Could be. May be. I really don't know anything anymore." My senses start to numb and everything around me spins. I want to throw up again, but I don't have the energy to.

"Good night then" the voice says and before I know what direction is up I collapse to the ground, hammer still in hand and go unconscious. Fatigue is something you have to worry about when too many things happen at once. It's a welcome release and I'm perfectly content to just sleep away the whole experience. I am, however, completely vulnerable and another one of those creatures could simply come along and tear my flesh off. I just hope when and if I wake up that I still have my cigarettes and change.

Bastards, at least let me keep that before this goddamn town swallows me up in its craziness.


	5. THE THIRD

Chapter 5: THE THIRD

That annoying, electronic buzzing sound hums in my ears like it has for many days before. Sadly, it doesn't have a radio built into it--just an alarm. I know it's 7a.m. because that's when I get up for work, but it's the weekend and I forgot to turn the goddamn thing off. A few days off is better than nothing, I suppose, but it feels like only a brief moment until I'm back still doing the daily grind and looking forward to the weekend when the process starts all over again. I turn over to face the clock with disdain in my glassy eyes and hit snooze.

I toss my blue bed sheets to the side and just stare up at the ceiling fan, which has been running all night. One of my problems is that once I'm up, I'm up and I can't get back to sleep. The alarm goes off again and this time I just turn the alarm setting off. I really should look into getting a radio alarm so at least I can wake up to something semi-pleasant. It's the third today, I believe. March. It normally shouldn't be this hot, but it is. The whole city and a few neighboring towns are completely caught off-guard and now we're all roasting our asses off. The only thing that really annoys me about it is that it's going to be a while before I can go back to wearing a coat, and even then spring and summer are just around the corner.

Fuck. I can't wait till fall. Yawning and stretching, I take a look out the window and see all of Brahms from my eighth floor apartment. An orange vista creeps over the skyline and coats the entire city. It's Saturday and I typically don't get the day off, but the project's been slow to get off the ground and the boss said take an extra day off. It was incredibly obvious to all of us that he was pissed off, but he tried to hide it by pulling his baseball hat down over his eyes. Still, I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth.

I walk across the wooden floor back to my closet and pull out the old standby--a white working tee and a pair of dark blue jeans. The phone rings while I make myself a bowl of cereal. Just let the answering machine get it, I'm not here and please leave a message at the end of the beep.

BEEP.

"It's me. I just called to let you know I'm going to be busy all day. Call me tomorrow."

I guess dinner's off for today then, I tell myself in disappointment. I really wanted to see her today. I hit the erase button and take a look at the plain bowl of flakes I've just poured. All of a sudden cereal doesn't seem to appeal much to me.

"Fuck it."

I feel I have to get out for the day, first get breakfast somewhere and take it from there. She was here yesterday night and gone in the morning. She does that often, leaving me to guess the next time she'll show up or call. Every time I bring up going to her place she quickly changes the subject and laughs nervously. The sheet's still cool from our sweat and her perfume--I think it's that Rose perfume or whatever it's called. It's been a lengthy relationship and once in a while I have serious doubts, not that I'm clingy or anything. She asks me when we go out if I'm all right and I tell her I can handle it--but we both know I'm lying as usual.

I think about other things, try to block it out or at least ignore it for right now. Just as my hand grabs for the doorknob the phone rings again. Don't people know by now not to call me?

BEEP

"Hey, it's your boss-man calling. Pick up."

Shit. Once in a great while I get a call from him—calls that involve him yelling at me for some mistake I made or just to bitch about what's going on in his personal life, usually in a drunken slur, as if I honestly care. There's a pang of fear I feel that this time I might actually be fired and have to go on a tedious job search.

"Yeah. What's up?" I ask, trying to sound like I'm composed.

"Noth…nothing in particular. It's just that I wanted to go over a few things with you."

"Such as?" My voice perks up with a hint of annoyance.

"Just random stuff. How much progress we've made on the building, the timeframe we've laid out, how shit's going." His voice wavers going from high to low pitch. Drunk, as always.

_Drunk as always. That pretty much sums me up as well._

"But I don't want to talk about it on the phone. I'd like to talk in person someplace."

If he were here right now in my apartment he'd be looking at a very puzzled face. Apparently he's not drunk and something really is bothering him. Plus, he's my boss.

"Alright, whatever lights your fire. Just not on the weekend. I have plans tomorrow…I think."

"Anything going on today?" He sounds just like a child calling up a friend who's always busy.

"Yeah. Stuff." I'm getting a little agitated by now. I'm not his fucking shoulder to cry on and I'm sick of listening about how the client is a real asshole, the size of his beer gut, or the fact that he hates his wife.

"Like?"

"Like I-don't-wanna-talk-to-you-right-now stuff. Okay?" I just made a sarcastic reply to my boss, but to be perfectly blunt I don't give a rat's ass. If I'm fired, oh well. More free time for me.

"Sure, just keep in touch."

CLICK

I place the phone back on its cradle and head out the door again. The hallway's dimmed low and it's an odd mix of fresh, green paint over white and crusty paint. The window at the end of the hallway is broken. Several layers of duct tape crisscross over it and a note taped next to it reads "BROKEN GLASS. BE CAREFUL." I walk toward the staircase that's adjacent to my apartment and listen to my footsteps on the new carpet. It's renovation time and everybody in the complex pays.

That fresh paint smell burns the hairs in your nostrils, carpenters and painters come and go as they please, and you can't come out of your apartment until they tell you to. The staircase winds down to the first floor and through the pair of double wooden doors comes a guy with reddened skin, no hair, and a box full of tools. The doors aren't even done swinging and four more men, each looking as haggard as their leader, come out with a myriad of various tools and paint. I can't say I'm too upset that I'm going to miss this.

I brush past them and out the doors where the population of Brahms is going about their daily schedule half-asleep and uninterested. A fat woman with a backpack walks past me wheezing as I just stand there feeling in my pockets for a cigarette. I relax and put my hands my side—I'll live without them. Besides, I usually enjoy them more towards the evening. People walking on the sidewalk part like the sea as I walk through without even taking their attention off the newspaper their reading or some other morning activity. A young woman, I'm going to say about in her early twenties, with a blonde ponytail and a heavy amount of makeup, looks at me as I pass by and smiles.

I nod shyly and mutter a weak "hello" as I continue on down the street. Why am I even remembering this? I'm lying in the street unconscious and in my own vomit, next to the rotting corpse of some creature that's unidentifiable. I should be remembering something important—a death in the family, my first kiss, when I learned to drive a car, when I went to prom—not an inane day in my life. I have many of those types of days that aren't even worth remembering.

Still, the memory continues on since I apparently don't have a say in the matter. It's maybe a few hours later if I recall and I'm sitting on the patio of some no-name breakfast place with an empty plate smeared with breadcrumbs and egg yoke while sipping some coffee. Straight up black, no sugar or sweeteners. The orange haze leaves and the skies turns blue-ish, becoming a bit hotter in temperature but at least there's a light breeze.

The meal was an egg sandwich; nothing worthy of note other than it was edible. The thought of this day is oddly comforting to me. I just sit on a wooden chair sipping a cup of coffee, watching morning turn into afternoon. It seems worlds away just sitting at a restaurant—like it was a dream and this cold, dead town is reality. Living in my apartment and going out to eat feels like some unattainable idea of happiness now. Silent Hill was my real life now, like I've always been wandering the streets. You take simple things in your life like that for granted, forgetting about it moments later and complaining about how nothing ever happens.

That's human nature, isn't it? Never being grateful for the things we have, however repetitive and uninteresting they may be, until they're yanked away from us without explanation. It seems like a good enough reason to stay alive and get out of this town. Not for anything noble—just so I can sit and drink a cup of coffee on a patio. Right now, that's the most appealing thing to me in the world. The memory fades away and I'm left to nothingness.


	6. STILL ALIVE

Chapter 6: STILL ALIVE

All I feel is emptiness and the cold ground. Feeling means I'm still alive, possibly not conscious, but at least not dead for that matter. Maybe just dreaming? I think that maybe the next person to be on one of those missing persons cards you get in the mail will be me. Height, weight, hair color, date of birth, last time seen, and up above that information will be the most recent picture they can find of me. It'll no doubt be the picture of me smiling over my shoulder and holding up a tall mug of frothy beer in salute. I forget who took the picture, but I at least know it's somewhere in my apartment—and anybody that would put me on one of those cards could probably rummage through and find it.

Somebody will see the card with me as the missing person, glance at it briefly, and throw it in the garbage. They won't even bat an eyelash. Many people go missing each year; they just practically disappear from their lives. Sure there might be an investigation, but it won't last long and it won't turn up anything. The cops will poke their noses around my workplace and ask a few questions. In my head the voices are distinct and very real, as if they're yakking right over my body.

"Could you tell me about your coworker. Was he unusual in any way?" A stocky detective wearing thick glasses and cropped hair asks Stan, who is sitting with a nervous expression on his face on his couch at home. A home I've never set foot in even though he asked me several times.

"Unusual? A little, I guess. He'd have a few drinks with us and talk, but not like a friend kinda friend, ya know? He was the loner type definitely…sort of an asshole sometimes." Stan shrugs uneasily, maybe hoping that if they find me I won't see any of his statements in print.

"Did he ever mention that he owed someone money, someone had a grudge against him, or anything like that?" The detective doesn't press Stan too hard and I can tell there's nothing more this guy would like to do more than get this investigation over with.

"Naw, he didn't tell us shit. If he did, he certainly didn't act like it." Stan twiddles his thumbs like a child and doesn't make eye contact.

"Well, I mean…he's the type of guy that I think, under the certain circumstances, would skip town." Stan's quick to add that before he loses the nerve to say it.

"How do you mean? Did he have any trouble with the law?" The detective now gives some attention to what Stan is saying."

"Yeah, he's had a few run ins with the law. It would depend—sometimes he'd get in a fight with someone or get held for public drunkenness. It was easy to tell because he wouldn't show up for some workdays. If it wasn't for the fact this project's a mess as it is, and we need all the manpower we can get, he'd probably have been fired a long time ago."

What utter bullshit, I hiss as if I was some unwelcome specter in the dream at the two men, who can't see or hear me. I want to scream at the top of my lungs at the both of them.

"Skip town? You stupid mother fucker. I'm trapped in someone's goddamn nightmare of a town, maybe my own. And your theory is I left town because shit got tough! Fuck you!"

The words fall on deaf, or maybe just apathetic ears.

"Thank you for your time, sir." The detective turns his attention to the front door, where his attention really was to begin with.

"Great detective work, pal." I wheeze. I realize I'm never going to be found, they'll just write me off like I never existed in the first place. Who cares? Just one less face in the world. My thoughts are coming a bit more coherent now and the visions have stopped—all I see now are the blacks of my eyelids. I hear something shuffle away, maybe breaking out into a sprint. The numb feeling in my muscles wears thin and my eyelids don't feel so heavy.

I open them, hoping to maybe see the same blue sky I've seen a thousand times before in my life or the ceiling fan in my apartment. My unfocused vision is nothing more than the fog swirling in the air—dancing in the air in a practically hypnotic way. It feels alive like it's its own being, pulsating and breathing in the air. It's later in the day, I think. My thoughts come back to that image coming after from under the car and I jolt upright, paranoia fueling adrenaline through my system. I'm in an alley lying right beside an open dumpster.

I pat my entire coat and my pants only to find I don't have my cigarettes. My left hand stops of its own accord and I realize I don't have the hammer with me. Images of that thing dragging me along the road fill my head, but that doesn't fit with why my cigarettes are missing. I let out a childish giggle under my breath at the thought of the thing smoking, but it quickly subsides. I had to have been hearing footsteps—someone dragged me away. It doesn't make things any less complex and only gives me more questions.

On a whim I whip out my billfold and a thin piece of yellow paper sticks out. Written in blue ink and an almost illegible print, the paper reads:

I.O.U. ONE PACK OF CIGS

IF YOU WANT TO COLLECT, HEAD ON OVER TO THE LIBRARY

--YOURS TRULY,

D.N.

PS: WATCH YOUR ASS

I stuff the piece of paper back into my otherwise empty wallet and put it into my back pocket. I get up and steady myself on the dumpster, holding both my hands out. Legs feel a little stiff, but otherwise I seem to be fine. I circle around past the dumpster, facing a long stretch of road with wooden fences running parallel. Whoever dragged me did so for a long ways. Metal trash cans and empty cardboard boxes line the sides of the street, some knocked down and trampled on as if something was rummaging through them.

_Something._

I shudder but find the will to walk down the alleyway. I feel drained and tired—only a fraction of my energy left. I take a slow stride, trying to stay at a constant albeit slow pace. Somebody else is still alive, and I guess that counts for something. It doesn't matter who they are as long as they might be able to help me, I justify to myself as I pull the collar of my coat up. It's either that or take my chances alone with whatever else might be crawling around. Just as I lose myself in thought, something steps out of the fog up ahead. But that doesn't seem right—materializes is more like it.

It whimpers in a high pitch and doesn't look that tall. It walks towards me in a slow and cautious trot. Its features come into view and it looks like a dog with four legs and tail. Something's off about it. Its whimper turns into a snarl and it picks up speed. I take two small steps back and nearly fall. Powerful legs muscles work in unison to jet the image along the street, sailing over trash and other items lying around. Its ears flap crazily and some sort of tongue sticks out, black goo dangling from it.

It's much closer now and has closed the great distance in a matter of seconds. I break out of my fear-induced paralysis and take a metallic lid from a garbage can nearby in my hand. I clench the handle and watch the dog-thing come into range. It has no fur, only a mucus-like coating over it and the skin on its face droops in a strange way. It reminds me of when as a little kid one would melt the faces of plastic toys and watch their faces slowly slide off and crisp under the heat of several matches. Its opens and closes with a snap and it flattens itself on the pavement, then springs upwards at me looking to bite me in the midsection.

I take a sidestep to its right side and it narrowly misses. I feel its warm breath on my shirt and it flies past me. I thrust the lid at the thing and only hit its back while it's still in the air. It cries out in pain and slams into the pavement, skidding a little bit on its back. I take the initiative and run at full speed, stooping near the thing and lifting up my right foot as high as I can. The foot comes down and the heel smashes into the thing's mushy face. Something snaps out of place and I take a sort of sadistic pleasure in that. I switch to the other foot and punt kick into what I think is its ribcage. It rolls over a couple of times and ends up still on its back.

It rolls and goes into a ready position. I think I pissed it off. It growls loudly and bears its teeth—which are crooked, out of place, misshapen, and jagged. The thing opens its mouth and thick lines run along the sides of its muscular throat. The throat opens along with the mouth revealing an almost endless row of teeth. It clamps down with a clacking sound like an alligator. I wonder to myself if that thing can bite off an entire arm. I back away, giving myself a little distance. I take my gaze away from the thing for a moment to look at a knocked-over garbage several feet away from me. Something rustles inside and pokes its head out, sniffing the air.

It's another dog-thing and snaps its head in my direction, ears erect and alert. My eyes turn back to the thing circling around me in a slow trot, looking to find a weakness and exploit it. The thing stops circling and runs at me--its entire mouth open and dripping saliva and its own unknown black substance. It looks like the maw of some great beast, able to swallow prey in a single gulp. Dozens of its teeth are exposed, though it might as well be hundreds and seeing all the way down its exposed throat gives the sense of an endless and dark cave with no way out.

It makes another leap, but this time much faster and higher. Hardly enough time to attack it again so I sidestep it again and I feel a sharp pang on my upper chest as it blurs past me and lands on its feet. The pain brings me to my knees and I look at my shirt—seeing a tear in it and dark-red blood slowly oozing out of the horizontal wound. Out of the corner of my eye I notice the other dog making his way over here and it looks as if I'll have to fight the both of them off. The dog in front of me makes another leap but it lost its breath and pants rapidly. It doesn't get too far off the ground and come up underneath the dog's face with the lid, sending it backwards in an uppercut.

It lands on its side leaving red splotches on the pavement several feet away from me. The other dog's casual stride has turned into a gallop. Can't take on two of the things at once. The blood dripping steadily from my chest stains my black shirt and runs down onto my jeans. I feel the blood with my hand and it's sticky and warm. A distant voice rises up from the depth of my mind just then as I examine the blood with an almost zealous fervor.

_How much blood are you going to spill today?_

It sounded vaguely like the voice I heard when I blacked out—deep, hissing, mocking, and cynical. I don't pause to think about the voice, just block it out and concentrate on surviving.

If that's at all possible, the voice chimes in to plant a seed of doubt. I toss the lid (which has just been bent into an odd shape after hitting the thing full force) aside and run towards the fence. I forget which side is the right or the left at the moment. I turn the metallic trashcan upside down and hop onto it, giving myself just enough height to pull myself over the fence. The fence doesn't have any pointy edges on it, but as I pull all my weight over the fence with my arms I feel the rough wood dig into my wound. A scream wants to come out of my mouth but it's stifled with just a wide and animated grimace of pain. 

My dangling legs kick away the trashcan and flail wildly in the air as I try to get some kind of a footing. Something snags the left cuff of my jeans, pulling it back to the original side of the wooden fence with animalistic ferocity. Teeth tear the seams apart in a wild frenzy, shaking my leg left and right. I suck in stomach and with a massive tug of force yank myself over the fence, ripping a chunk of out of the cuff of my denim jeans. I land in a patch of cool, neatly mowed grass that irritates the cut on my chest. I can hear four sets of paws clawing at the fence and whimpers and moans of disappointment.

I gather myself off the ground, brushing grass off of my clothes and taking a view of my new surroundings. It's purely residential, suburbs—streets lined with row after row of housing. Every single one has an aged appearance and the houses take on an eerie quality with the fog hanging over and moving through the streets. A screen door swings open and closed making a maddening clacking sound. A basketball hoop mounted on a garage is turned inside out and a basketball sits motionless below the hoop on the pavement. The sounds of the dog-things stops along with the screen door and the entire suburb is enveloped in silence.

A portion of the block is made up of modern, plain looking houses while odd, older looking and more complex houses are peppered throughout with no discernable pattern. It looks like they were place randomly and it strikes me as sloppy. Blood seeps out of the wound again and I vaguely remember you're supposed to keep pressure on a wound. The memory is faint and hazy. Was that from high school? The news? I press my right hand flatly on the wound and it makes a sickening squelching sound. Something clacks on the ground, echoing in the air and becoming more audible.

A bead of nervous sweat breaks from my forehead and trickles down the side of my cheek. They found a way around the fence, possibly through a broken fence board. I carefully make sure I'm still pressing down the wound as I go into a mad run into the closest house to me. It's an old-looking house with a steeple at the top of its black roof. It looms over and is easily the tallest house in the neighborhood. What was once maybe a healthy coat of green paint on the house is now a sickly moss greening cracking and peeling off. Not much time to admire it for its aesthetic value.

My legs feel weighted and pulling them forward takes more energy and effort than it ever has in my entire life. I reach its creaky, wooden porch and wildly turn the knob with a shaky hand. Goddamn it, that's the bloody hand. My gory handprint smears onto the bronze knob and it's locked and I don't have time to play around to find the key.

I ram into the door with my shoulder and I feel something tear a little from inside. I run at it again—harder and faster this time—and I stumble back, feeling a dull pain come from within my shoulder blade. The dogs are barking and running close to me now. The lock on the door is loose, but needs a decent amount of force against it before it opens. Taking a deep breath, I pull my left leg up until my knee reaches my chin and snap my foot forward onto the door with as much force as I have. Muscles that I never knew I had before stretch painfully. The door flings open, banging again the wall and a piece of plaster flies off the lock.

The dogs run up to the porch, leaping from one stair to the next. I slam the door shut on them and hear a thud. I notice a secondary lock and turn it; backing slowly away from the door and watching the dogs bark and claw at the door in vain. Tiny droplets of crimson fall from my wound onto the carpet. The pain in my chest stops roaring and dulls. The house has that musty smell of old people and tacky furniture. The house is decorated with black-and-white photos hanging on the walls with smiling children, a ride and groom holding each other, and a man in a suit with slicked-back hair. Wind howls against the windows and groans of the dogs stop.

I make a painfully slow lurch towards the house's bathroom, holding my chest and grinding my teeth as I ascent the oaken staircase.


	7. THE OTHER WORLD

Chapter 7: THE OTHER WORLD

Hollow-looking, fearful eyes stare blankly back at me. The face those eyes belong to have deep and dark purple saucers, a pale (and almost white) complexion, and the look of a man who has seen too much and gone through too much. Hard as it is, I manage to take my eyes off the mirror and fix my gaze on my chest. A thick roll of red gauze caked with blood numbs the pain of my wound, wrapping underneath my armpits. I run a hand through my hair and feel it's plastered down with sweat, making it greasy and smelly. Light dimly shines through a window, illuminating dust particles swirling in the air and giving a view of the street below.

I sit down on the closed toilet seat with a thud. It's one of those seats with a fuzzy pink cover. Looking at me right in the eyes is the bronzed figure of a tortured Jesus hanging on a rough wooden cross, his chest sunken in and a face expressing unimaginable pain and closed eyes. His face is turned away as if he was ashamed and couldn't look at his oppressors. Below Jesus is a small plaque with the phrase WHAT WOULD JESUS DO? Etched into it in elegant and golden letters. I wonder to myself why Christianity is such a sad and painful thing. The bible depicts nothing but suffering. I grumble and take out the lighter in my pocket, flipping it open and closed in a nervous gesture and pondering.

Jesus would no doubt have gotten out of this town in five minutes, done a miracle or two, and without the use of violence. But I'm not Jesus…I'm just some guy that's knee-deep in shit he doesn't understand. The small orange glow flickers and dissipates one last time as I snap the chrome lighter shut, putting it back into my pocket. The dogs have quieted down and are content just to pace around the house, sniffing the air and waiting for me to come out. I return to my position in front of the mirror and continue to gaze contemplatively at my appearance. Dried blood continues to stick underneath my fingernails, giving them a gory red outline. I've attempted to clean my hands three times with a towel and I still can't get the blood out.

I get down on my knees and open the cabinet underneath the sink—the same place I found the gauze in the first place. Behind the small, white empty box is a host of cleaning detergents and some Drano. Nothing particularly useful. With a grunt I get back onto my feet and walk out, leaving my black coat hanging on the doorknob. It's an ugly, loathsome house with few if any positive aesthetic qualities. Tacky lime-green wallpaper with white flowers adorns the entire household. It's one of those houses you can tell was decorated by an elderly couple, complete with equally tacky furniture that's as hard as a rock. The aroma of overused pine scent can be smelled in every room. I walk, though it's really more of a shamble at this point, to what I assume is the master bedroom.

I lie back down on the bed as I had several times before—occasionally drifting into a light sleep, but not this time. My head's propped against two pillows so that I can view the window and rest my arms behind my head. How much time has passed me by in this house? Not nearly enough, I think to myself and then I'm overwhelmed with boredom and hunger. The flaring pain in my chest drowns the hunger pains out, but eventually I will have to eat. Like all the other furniture, the bed is equally uncomfortable. I turn on my side to the right and rummage through a wooden nightstand. It's stuffed with socks and briefs, but my hand wraps itself around something. I pull my hand back and eye the item I just pulled out.

Two books, well one book and a composition notebook. The hardcover book has a thick, brown leathery hide with a golden cross etched into it and printed on it are the words HOLY BIBLE. I toss it across the bed and hear it roll on the carpet, paying it no attention. I open up the black and white notebook and read the sloppy, printed words within.

"_I've no explanation for what's going on. I've always been a deeply religious man, but even I have trouble in believing the things I'm seeing. Been seeing, really. Doors slam shut in my face when I peer to see what's behind them in the town. People say things I don't comprehend and when I try to listen in they scowl and turn away. I felt alienated even in the church I devote my time to volunteering at. It happened slowly at the church, at least that's what I think._

I don't know, and every time I try to put any kind of information I get together it just raises more questions and it gives me a hellacious headache. Why am I seeing these things? Alleyways that I've walked by a hundred times before now stretch in odd directions and go into strange places. Myra thinks I should see a doctor, and I am pretty old anyway. Maybe she is right…but the sermons they say at the church don't sound right. It's hard to explain—it's God they're still talking about…but not really God. Someone's different idea of God and I don't like it. I have some serious thinking to do.

Sebastian Cole, 70—1989"

Just little over a year old.

I slowly swing my legs to the side of the bed and stand up, setting the notebook gently on the bed. My feet seem to shuffle on their own towards the window and yet again I gaze outside and see the gray blankness engulfing the streets. One of the dog-things sits below me, looking upwards and growling as usual. They'll wait until I try to leave and rip my flesh off. I look out the corner of my eye and immediately I can feel a hideous grin widening across my face. It takes every ounce of my strength to carry the medium-sized TV off its pedestal and then setting it on the bed. I unlock the window and lift it until it's over my head, hearing it squeak and rattle as I do so.

There is a brief, cold gust of wind and the dog-thing cocks its head at me in curiosity. I bring the TV over and perch it on the windowsill. The modern-looking TV offsets the quaint décor of the room. With a heave and a heavy breath I push the TV and watch gravity take its course. Much like bagels and pizza the TV lands facedown, with the end result being the dog-thing getting its face smashed by the screen and then crushed by its sheer weight and velocity. It's amazing how far up a second floor can actually be. The dog goes into its death throes; its body sprawled on the ground twitching.

Its limbs thrash wildly, splashing the pool of blood developing under its shattered body in every direction like a grotesque sprinkler. Two other dogs cautiously stride towards the dying creature, sniffing the ground as they do so. It stops moving and lets out one final whimper. Two left. I notice I'm still giving a vacant smile and I force the muscles in my jaw to relax. Both dogs tug on the carcass' appendages, ripping flesh and snapping sinews until the skin rips off. The both of them gobble what they can and tug on one piece, each not backing down. I slam the window shut and walk out of the room, unable to stomach the images. I faintly hear the shredding sounds; they're even now possibly trying to move the TV to get to the rest of the (meat) corpse.

They're not the only wants that are hungry, though. I can't remember the last time I ate or drank something. I slowly descend the staircase, holding onto the railing as that TV incident took most of my strength. Goddamn eyes hurt too, like little pinpricks. I need something to keep my strength up. Everything goes grainy again and I rub my eyes until they hurt even more, like tiny flares have lit up in my eye socket.

There's food wherever you look, you just got to kill it first 

Not an option, and a disgusting one to boot. I bend forward violently and feel like I'm going to throw up, but all that comes out is spittle. The world goes grainy again and the colors merge together and then melt. It has to be the wound and I've lost too much blood, but then I start to wonder. A humming noise emanates from below the house, the mechanical type of humming that doesn't stop. A machine sputtering and clanking as it rocks back and forth. From under my feet I can feel the vibrations and I seek out the basement. A single vanilla painted door is where the sound comes from. I open the door, throwing away caution and common sense and I'm greeted by a blast of warm air. What little light there is in the house illuminates a few wooden steps that go down.

I feel the wall with my hands like a blind man, frantically searching for a light switch. No, that's right there's no electricity anyway. There's still my lighter, and I flip it out and watch its glow illuminate a small portion of the decomposing vanilla wall, which has now turned to an unattractive yellow. I know I should be watching my feet to make sure I don't trip, but I can't take my eyes off the lighter as it bobs up and down lighting the way. Watching one part of the basement come into view while the parts behind me return back to the darkness. It's a long staircase, and the air grows thicker and hotter with each step I take. The machine keeps humming and it feels like someone's drilling into my skull.

Every single one of its thuds never skips a beat and doesn't let up, I make up my mind to break it with whatever I can find down there. A washing machine maybe? No, it's much larger than that. Down into the abyss of nowhere, that's what this basement feels like. I pause for a moment and the small flame in my hand stutters, moving slightly from side to side like a snake in waiting. The light coming in from the doorway is dim, many miles far away as I look at it from a perspective of several stories down. It dawns on me that I have no weapon and I could have easily searched for a kitchen knife or something else to use. They're down there, a whole nest of them maybe.

The echoes of my footsteps stop along with the steps. The machine is only a few feet away and I can barely make out the pipes that jut out from a large cylinder. Steam steadily rises from the sides of the machine as it clanks and continues to hum loudly. It's the source of the heat, and it's making me dizzy. Turning the lighter to the side of the wall the pipes are coming from, it illuminates a bundle of wires that run along the wall into a closed circuit breaker. The rusted metal covering creaks loudly as I open it, spilling a pile of dust that was trapped out into the air.

There's only one switch inside the breaker, with small white print that reads on and off. The switch offers up some resistance which I suspect is a rusted spring but it soon gives up and clasps down to its proper position. The machine sputters and its din dies down to a whisper, then there's silence. All that's left is the dancing light in my hand as it dissipates. Left in the dark, all I can do is stand and frantically try to reignite the lighter. Blood rushes to my skull and the air thickens as the temperature drops. The world seems to shift underneath my feet, reconfiguring itself like a massive puzzle box.

Every piece sliding away and reattaching itself in a new place, forming something new. My legs lock into place and the muscles don't respond. Pure instinct—as if I moved I'd be caught in this change's gears and be crushed. No, just let whatever's changing happen and don't die. I stand helplessly as the real world hopefully shifts into view, but it's just the world I'm in right now melting away—its coating rots off to reveal something even more hideous than its surface. Please lift the darkness, somebody. It's suffocating, slow and painful torture to my senses and then in a brief reprieve it stops just as easily as the machine. My thumb clicks the lighter of its own accord and it ignites, illuminating the circuit breaker that has been rusted even more so as if it aged several decades. Its electrical guts spilled out, the switch dangles by a few threads of copper wire.

The machine's gone, probably a heater, disappeared as if it had just been stopping by for a few brief moments. The cramped basement had now become a narrow hallway that stretched on for an unknown length. A flicking light bulb, swinging on a thin and rotted piece of cord dimly lit the hallway as if showing the correct way to go. It was the only way to go as the staircase vanished as well, replaced by a thick wall with peeled paint and a moistness that had suggested a pipe buried within the wall had long since sprung a leak and was slowly deteriorating the wall with a steady supply of water. The entire hallway smells awful of decay and mildew as if was so old, so dilapidated that it was just minutes away from collapsing.

With an uneasy demeanor I put the lighter back in my pocket and walked down the newly created hallway. Just for me, I mused to myself. This is all just for me and no one else because, apparently, I'm special and not at all like normal people. The waxed, wooden floor was no longer that but now dingy tiles—most of which were cracked, shattered into dust, or not even there in the first place. My footsteps echo through the hallway and it sounds alien, unbearable like a loud reverb. I have no weapon—no knife, no hammer, no gun to use. Adding onto that I'm still injured and drained of energy, whatever's down the hallway would easily have the advantage.

I'm now halfway through the hall and just passed over the swinging light bulb. The image of a person standing and looking at me is illuminated from the light, but it soon swings away and back again only to show the figure resting on the wall, now blocking the pathway. I cautiously walk towards the figure and come upon it. Its head is looking down between its bent legs and its arms are limp. I tightened my right hand into a fist and keep it ready, clenched as hard as my muscles were allotted to. No point in saying hello or being subtle, no point other than to find answers. I poke the thing's head—nothing.

I push its head forward with my finger and quickly let go, watching the head fall back into place as if it was giving me a grotesque nod. We're too far from the light for me to see properly and I use the lighter. It clicks, a spark flies, and what is illuminated in the small orange glow is nothing but a dead shell of a man. Barely recognizable, the features of his face are decayed and distorted beyond normal standards of recognition. The only defining feature of the man's face is a horrible grimace of horror and pain, the very portrait of anguish. The corpse's mouth is wide open showing a blackened tongue and missing teeth, one of which is still dangling by a nerve.

It's disgusting and offensive to all of my senses, but I can't help wondering why I'm seeing this and its significance, if any. The body is that of a man, a tall one judging by his arm and leg length. He's wearing a business suit, one that's shredded and colors that have long since faded. Worst of all, he smells entirely of ashes—even from his opened mouth. Congealed blood is dried from various cuts in the suit and have been splattered all over the shirt, making it look every bit as black as the man's tongue. Despite every revolting detail I notice, every instinct in me that says I should either be scared or puke I still feel nothing at the sight of the dead body. The thought that this was still a dream remained in my head, though it had been moved to the very back of my mind.

So if it was just a dream, what the fuck did it matter how I viewed things anymore? What if this rotting piece of a human being was just a prop created by my mind? No point in pissing your pants over that. But the wound I felt loud and clear. Thick blood spilling out of my body and every nerve in my body registering the pain, screaming out as my flesh was ripped open. How could that be a part of a dream even if it was vivid as hell? I lift up my t-shirt and touch the gory bandages. Sensation doesn't lie, it's the only way we know anything's real is if we can touch it. I turn my attention back to the corpse, setting aside such weighty philosophical issues. A piece of metal glints with the reflection of my lighter from the corpse's collarbone. I lean in closer, unfortunately in the process picking up the corpse's ashen stink. It's a knife of some kind and somebody stabbed the poor son of a bitch to death.

It would have to do as a substitution for the hammer I lost earlier. I go to pull the knife out and it stubbornly refuses. Meat and bone have locked the knife into place and dried blood makes it even more difficult.

"This is going to do more for me than it ever did for you." I vaguely hear myself quip, unsure whether I actually said that or just thought it. Now I try both hands, tugging at the knife's handle and the body shakes with every tug. The knife loosens a little bit, making a grotesque squelching sound. Blood wells out and drips down his suit. Is this him, I wonder? D.N. The person who dragged me around and gave me that note. No, it can't be—the body's rotted for far too long. It's not a fresh corpse. It smells and looks ancient, probably someone who got caught up in the same bullshit as me a long time ago. Maybe somebody who had an important job, like a businessman.

The blood continues to spurt out, soaking my hands. It's not like my blood at all. The blood's thick and dark, icy cold as if it were jelly. Something inside of the body gives, a piece of muscle tears maybe, and the knife pulls out. The body spasms and the head's bowed lower now like a puppet slumped in a corner. Now standing, I take the lighter off of the body and turn to face a rotted wooden door. I open the door and prepare to face whatever shows up.


	8. CELL 206

Chapter 8: CELL 206

It's coming right around the corner and I know it will, but I can't quell the fear or the adrenaline running through my system. You caught me in the chest with that pipe, you fucking bitch. Lucky shot that caught me by surprise, not that it didn't hurt like hell. I can't stop wheezing, so I put my hand over my mouth and hold the knife ready. It's a butterfly knife, hadn't realized that until I was walking slowly through this mazelike complex. The sounds of the dragging pipe echo and sounds louder now, a little more distinct. I hold the knife at about what I think is its height, hoping to slash its throat.

"Closer" I chant in my thoughts. Just turn the corner and I'll get you. It would be easier to do this if the wind, among other things, hadn't been knocked out of me. I'll just have to make it count. What's taking so fucking long? I peer, inch by inch, until I can see what's around the corner. I jerk my head back and stumble on my back, narrowly missing a pipe to my skull. The wall's rotten plaster cracks and falls off from the pipe's impact, leaving a small burst of dust hanging in the air and then dissipating. She walks towards me in a drunken walk; head convulsing as if it were about to burst open.

It wore a nurse's uniform and had the overall shape of a young woman, but those were the only features I could register as being that of a person. The thing's entire body gives off the appearance of being covered in filth. Soot and blood mingle on every inch of the creature's body and it smells like a dozen different types of shit. Its right arm was broken and twisted so much that it looked as if it had two left hands. My eyes dart from looking at its face to the pipe gripped in its left hand. The face is a malformed lump of twisted flesh: no eyes, mouth, nose, or even ears. Just a few pulsating purple and red veins.

I move backwards using my elbows and manage to get my hands on the cold tiles, pulling myself away even faster. It lifts the pipe high into the air and over its head, readying a downward blow. Right then I feel small and insignificant looking up at this mass of skin and bone wearing a nurse's outfit, ready to ventilate my head. But it's slow and deliberate, no sense of any kind of intelligence. I yank myself further away and roll to the side. The pipe comes down and all I see is a blurry line until it cracks a tile.

It doesn't get ready again, it just stays in that position: head bowed down, arms thrust, knees bent, and torso stretched out. I get to my feet and lunge towards the thing, burying the blade wherever I can. I settle for the throat and it slides in with little resistance, like sticking a fork in a dinner ham. Its blood is rancid and slowly seeps out; it looks more like syrup than anything else. It shifts its position back to standing up as if it felt nothing; the knife still sticks in it with me trying to pull it out.

With its twisted, gloved right hand it places it gently on my chest and pushes me off with a strength its smallish appearance hides. The next few seconds happen at a choppy rate; I only seem conscious for bits and pieces of it. I don't feel the trip through the air, but I feel it as I slide onto the floor several feet away from the thing. A tremor travels from my back to the rest of my body and I gasp for air like some dying fish. I'm staring up at the ceiling with a dim light bulb looking back down at me like some ethereal light to heaven. A blinding, painful light that drills right into my retinas as I struggle to get to my feet.

Suddenly lifting my head is a feat since it now feels fifty pounds heavier. I have every reason to close my eyes, fatigue being one of the main reasons, but for a while I just look at the glowing light and hear the dragging of the pipe. Then there are the footsteps that ring in my ears. At this moment, my death is no longer an intangible idea but a reality that I've come to accept. So this is how it ends, I tell myself in thought when I'm not focusing on the pain in my chest and back. It ends with a pipe about to split my face in half and no answers whatsoever.

Just like the man in the hallway in his once-fancy suit. A man you could've respected had he still been alive and well. But he wasn't; just a corpse that smelled like ash with his mouth twisted and gaping wide open in sheer horror. God, how would I look days later assuming my body was—wasn't eaten? Flies laying their squirming maggot sons inside my split head, rotting purple and red brains that had once been a fresh pink.

Then what?

There would be no answers, no great revelation, and no satisfactory resolution. I have to know why this is being done to me, but my drive is weak physically and mentally. It's close now readying its deathblow. I turn over on my belly and do a weak push-up that doesn't even get my chest above my elbows and I thud back down. Oh, Christ the fucking pain shoots up my back once again, like somebody cracked a bat over my spine.

"You fucking bitch—" I lament between groans of agony. I look over my shoulder and see it's only a few feet and closing in.

"YOU FUCKING BITCH!" I roar and a spark of rage ignites, spittle flying from my mouth as it lifts the bent pipe once again.

I'm sick of being chased, sick of being tortured, sick of being on the verge of sanity and most of all sick of being hunted.

_YOU FUCKING BITCH CUNT MOTHER FUCKING GODDAMN WASTE OF SKIN GO BACK TO YOUR SCUMHOLE YOU PIECE OF SHIT WHORE MONSTER _

I leap up at it, lunging really, sacking it like some kind of football star. Vision's hazy at best, and I ignore the pain—focusing all my energy on this one task. I remember watching some TV show about how this fat lady rescued her six-year-old son from under a car. Lifted it up with own hands. Then they had some doctor on talking some medical jargon about how she could do it because occasionally in stressful situations people get a jolt of super-strength from adrenaline. I'd like to think that's what's happening now. And if this doesn't qualify as stressful, then what the hell does?

It falls to the floor and me along with it, accompanied by a satisfying thud that I hope shatters whatever fucking bones it has in its body. The pipe skids across the hallway, echoing loudly and practically making me deaf, but I block it out and instinctively put my hands to its throat, gripping it and digging my thumbs as hard as I can into the thing's windpipe. The head keeps convulsing, but I hold tight not letting go. Its arms flail wildly, striking me occasionally: one on my left cheek leaving a bruise and one on my right shoulder.

I twist its head from side to side and bash its head against the tiled floor with violent jerks. Up and down, up and down for god knows how many times until I start to see smearings of blood on the floor. With each blow the pool grows larger and redder while the things arms lose their strength until it stops flailing altogether. Eventually I let go. Eventually. It's dead, but I keep hammering anyway until my arms get tired and I roll off the nurse thing as if we were lovers resting after a long session of screwing.

My knees don't bend so well and I slip, falling on my ass and feeling a dull pain crawl its way up into my back yet again. I grind my teeth together and give it another try, this time succeeding at standing up. I punt-kick the thing in its head and madly stomp on its rib cage. It's gotta die somehow. Eventually I kick it over so it's face-down, its arms wrapped around itself as if it were pantomiming rubbing itself from a shivering cold. I see the pipe lying over in the corner and go to pick it up, glancing over my shoulder to make sure it's still down.

And dead.

I bend over to pick up the pipe and feel a twinge in my back and chest. Christ, I'm a train wreck. It's not particularly heavy as I grab it with both hands and turn around. The corpse is gone, a bloody smear leading down into the darkened hall its only sign of existence. I tighten my grip on the pipe and bring it close to myself like a baseball bat, taking cautious steps toward the bloody smear and down the hallway. Down there are no lights, not that the ones set up here are very bright to begin with. I just had to let it out of my sight, didn't I? Fucking dipshit. I still have absolutely no idea what this place is supposed to be, only that it's an endless maze of decrepit hallways.

How could I not hear it getting up or dragging itself away? Unless it—

Naw, it's silly, but under these circumstances why not?

Slithering. It slithered away like a disgusting snake on its belly.

Now I'm right where I had left it, darting my eyes between the bloodstain and the red trail leading into the dark hallway. I try to step over it, but it's just too much blood. Hearing it squelch underneath my shoes—a thick and disgusting sound fills my ears along with its stench. Smells like garbage. Wish I had a goddamn flashlight; all I have is my lighter which I fish out of my pocket and open, shifting the pipe into my left hand. It just barely illuminates the hallway. I keep my eyes on the light, but I take occasional glances to watch my feet slowly walk step by step on the blood trail.

"Trap" I mutter to myself. It'll spring out of the darkness and get me; the only question is from what angle. And then I stop and look ahead. Even with squinting my eyes I can't quite make out what it is, but I hold the pipe ready regardless. I make a mental association after hear the faint squeaking of wheels up ahead. It's a wheelchair, sitting harmlessly in the middle of this claustrophobic hallway. I move towards it, still cautious and gripping the pipe even tighter, hurting my hand in the process. I stopped breathing through my nostrils a while back; I huff loudly—inhaling and exhaling deeply.

I come upon it and the seat is streaked with fresh blood, and it appears the trail ends with the wheelchair.

"Where did it—"

Normally this would be the part where a shiver runs down my spine, except it feels like a flaring of pain. I raise the lighter above my head like a torch and look up. And there it was, clinging defiantly on the ceiling, its uniform drenched dark red with its own blood. It looks down at me, still convulsively its head as if my blows were simply shrugged off. Looking at me, right at me but by Christ it has no eyes how the fuck is it looking at me?

Panicked thoughts give way to panicked actions. I scream, my eyes bulge with fear. I hear my heart thundering in my ears. As if automatically my feet turn the other way, ready to run away. I feel a prick in my neck and turn back to face the wheelchair. A nurse sits, cross-legged, mockingly holding a syringe in one hand. I whip around one last time and run, letting go of the pipe and lighter without thinking. I'm running through blackness and I start to feel numb, the pain going away along with my strength. I slow down and my eyelids start to drop. Then, nothing.

That's what they do when you get out of line, pump you full of drugs to make you sleepy. Just like in the movies, then the orderlies come in and wrestle you down. Take you back and put you away.

Why don't they just kill me? Because they want me for something? I'm still not one-hundred percent sure if I was awake or not, all I remember is my head lolling back and forth, no real control, and feeling as if I was levitating. No, not levitating, I was in a chair being pushed. Pushed by a really, really nice nurse I think. And she smelled funny—like something was wrong with her, but she moved just like a normal person. Except her head was jumping in every direction.

And she was taking me through another long hallway towards a pair of double-doors, with a sign above that read "NEW PATIENTS." I looked around and saw so many closed doors, doors that were numbered and they were pounding. I couldn't just hear the pounding, it felt like it was coming from within my own skull—every knock was accompanied by a shrieking or wailing. Screams of agony and insanity.

"_I didn't mean to bad, mommy. I didn't mean to eat it. But I just—just couldn't help myself."_

"_Oh, Christ, look at what I done. Christ, look at what I done. Look at what I done."_

"_Why Don't You Just DIE? C'mon! DIE-DIE-DIE-DIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIE"_

"_You THINK the drugs are making me weak? Putting me to sleep so I'll be good for the doctors? No, I'm saving it all up in my system—every last drop—so I'll be strong and won't feel the pain when they try to take me back."_

Every door had a little window so you could see the poor bastards inside. My head bounced to the left and I looked inside one of the cells. There were two gray images inside straddling each other, thrusting up and down like a movie that's been fast-forwarded. And the cell after that one has the severed head of a china doll looking through, with its frozen smile and vacant stare fixed on me. It sways, hanging by a single thread, its red ponytail a tangled mess. From within the cell a hand came into view and snatched the doll's head off the thread, all there was left to see in the cell was a dangling piece of string with a piece of hair-strewn tape attached to the end of it. I stopped looking through the windows, but I have no doubt in each one there was some new nightmarish vision of craziness.

Is this where I belong? I wheeze the words out of my mouth, though I'm still not sure if I said that or just thought it. And the doors were opened like a hungry mouth by two things that looked no more distinguishable than a vague outline in the darkness. I don't feel a whole lot at this point and keeping my head up straight is difficult enough without all the colors running down like—like raindrops. It's not like being drunk; it's taking every piece of my thoughts and strength.

When I came around, I hoped all I had done for the past 24 hours or so was just being passed out on a sidewalk in Brahms. No such luck. They had dragged me to a padded cell where I sat huddled in a corner thinking things out. What had once been a soft, white clean cell was now harder than a stone and an unhealthy shade of piss-yellow. Too bad it smelled just like piss as well. Parts of the padding were ripped open exposing the stuffing underneath by five-fingered claw marks as well as insane gibberish written on the walls, not unlike some of the tirades I heard on my way here.

"_They keep asking me questions, saying they want to help me if I'll just open up and talk to them. All I want is to be out there again—with the fresh air and free to roam and shit and fuck. I swear I'll be good. I'll never talk to myself or say those strange things in front of people, I'll just whisper them to myself, and when I see a pretty young thing I'll turn my head and walk the other direction. Please, just please let me out. It's suffocation." _

The handwriting was crooked and all of the 'I's were missing dots; looks like it was written with a black crayon. It forms a sort of diary, though it looks to be out of order. I read another entry that's on the wall to the right of me.

"_Tried to escape. Caught. Big surprise, yes? But I can always try again. As many times as it takes until I'm out of here. On the loose is what I imagine they'll say when they kick open my door and figure I'm escaped. But you have to keep your mental edge. They try to take that away from you—with drugs, therapy, not letting you stare at the wall for more than five minutes or having a rematch at checkers when you say that bitch cheated and they tell you to calm down or else more drugs, and not letting you eat your food with anything other than a plastic spoon and—"_

The rest of the entry tapered off into a few small, squiggly lines that make no sense or are even legible for that matter. I'm in an insane asylum. Sanitarium, if we wanted to make it sound more pleasant and less like a prison for crazy people. I go through the nightmarish events over and over again wondering if there's some piece I forgot. I felt sick to my guts when I went down into that basement and something shifted, everything changing the basement into some kind of maze of hallways and then I ended up here. On the opposite wall facing me there's a large illustration of a giant, grinning striped cat I recognize as being the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland and a few quotes from it below:

'_We're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad.' _

'_How do you know I'm mad?' said Alice. _

_You must be,' said the Cat, or you wouldn't have come here._

My thoughts are interrupted by a voice from nearby.

"Hey, are you awake yet?"

Oh Christ I'm hearing that voice again are my first thoughts as I bring my knees up to my chin. I shiver like a tiny, pissing-his-pants scared little kid.

"Hello? Please, talk to me if you can hear me."

No, it's not. This voice is different: whiny, weak, pathetic, but still a male voice.

"Yeah. Where are you?"

"I'm over in the cell next to you. To the right."

The pain in my chest still rings with every step as I walk up to the rusted metal door with a broken glass looking hole.

"I didn't hear your door click, so I think it might be open. Give it a try."

Pensively, I tap the door with my finger and it creaks open like a dusty coffin, giving me a full view of the surroundings. Water drips from pipes overhead, dozens of different sized pipes that snake over each other and stretch throughout the large hallway. Out of habit, I close the door and listen to it creak and finally click into place, locking. On the door is a number—205. I turn to the left and see a pair of eyes looking at me from behind the cell of 206. On the door is a small piece of tape with a name written on it: Jarvis Miller.

"Second floor, sixth cell. Jarvis Miller." He says, his voice sounding a little panicked.

I have to question whether there's really somebody here with me, in the flesh, and I didn't dream this person up. His chin and forehead are obscured by the small size of the look hole. His face is gaunt, sickly, even more than mine. His face is slim and long, suggesting Jarvis has been having rough times outside of what's been going on here. Once again, there is no proof of anything either way. I decide to keep my observations to myself.

"I'm locked in. I was getting chased by—by things outside in this place and I ran in this cell and closed the door like a dipshit. But I can still help you. I know A LOT." His face perks up.

Answers.

"Then tell me what's going on." I ask, trying to hide my eagerness.

"It's hard to explain in a nutshell, especially since I'm not really sure myself. This decayed place is…a mental hospital, obviously, but you or I never once set foot in Brookhaven."

"What?" I have no idea where anything in Silent Hill is, let alone their crazy house.

"Ah, you're not a local. It's the name of Silent Hill's asylum. The last thing I remember was walking around a street and my vision going blurry. How about you?"

"I was resting up in this house and I checked the basement, then everything changed I got here."

"But this place isn't Brookhaven…not the real one, anyway. It's a sort of—oh, Christ I don't know how to say this right—mirror image. A distortion of this world by the Other World. A place that's His domain. You can call it what you like."

"Whose?" Jarvis' eyes bulge and I can see in all its glory the fear and panic in his face.

"Don't make me say His name!" He yells and the sound makes my joints ache.

"The last thing we need is one of those things hearing us. Keep your fucking voice down or I'll leave you in that cell to rot, understand?"

I hear him muttering something to himself, then turning his attention back to me—his voice dropping low as he nods.

"Alright, sorry. I don't want to say His name. Saying His name will make Him real, do you understand? And the last thing I want to do is become one of his followers."

More gibberish, exactly the same as what was scrawled on the padded wall. Jarvis deserves to be here, I think to myself. Still, some help is better than no help.

_(I'm mad. You're mad)_

"Fine, whatever. So who is this…whatever you want to call it and what does it have to do with what's going on?"

"A lot of people don't want to believe, it's too inconvenient for them and what little tourism this place still gets would be ruined. But let me put it this way—" He grins, maliciously as he swallows and continues.

"—Silent Hill has its share of shit that if anybody found out they'd scratch it off their family vacation destination list. Permanently."

"And what about the rest?"

"You really want to know?"

"No, I'm yanking your goddamn chain in a life-and-death situation." I snarl, making my impatience with this fucking lunatic as obvious as possible.

"Good, then that means I have leverage and I'm gonna use it. Get me out of here and I'll tell you the rest, and in addition to that—" He jingles a bronze key in front of the small window triumphantly.

"I have a key to the exit. It's through the autopsy room."

"Why the fuck would they—"

"First off, beats the shit outta me. This isn't a normal institution, is it? Secondly, I imagine the patients occasionally work themselves into a frenzy and die of a heart attack. Might as well have a few coroners on hand so they can declare the crazy shits didn't die of malpractice."

"So how do I get this thing open? I don't see a key hole."

"Electronic, I think. You need to find a mechanism to unlock the doors."

"There's a problem. I lost all the weapons I had."

We both pause, looking at each other. He blinks and drops his eyes to the floor, thinking, then brings his gaze back to me.

"Oh? Eh, well, assuming this place is anything like a real asylum then they probably have some place they put contraband. Like a cabinet or something like that."

A thought crosses my mind as to whether or not he'll keep his end of the deal. Paranoid, maybe, but why not? I could open the cell and he'd just run out, nothing to keep him from doing so. I need him just a bit more than he needs me, and that's what I hate about this whole situation. In mid-step I turn back to face his gaze; looking back at him I can see he realizes my suspicions.

"What's to keep you from running out the exit as soon as I unlock your cell?"

"Where's the trust?" He says mockingly.

"You're in a cell. Reserved for the insane."

"And you're here also. Think about that."

_(You must be, or else you wouldn't have come here)_

"Look, think about it this way—the safest place for me is this locked cell. Why would I run out, especially since those things are still crawling around?" His gaze softens to that of a pleading look.

Logical enough, he looks like a coward to boot.

"Fine, don't go nowhere." I say as I walk off toward the elevator at the end of the corridor.

"Hardy-fucking-har." I hear Jarvis say, listening as his words echo off the walls and then fall silent as I push the button to summon the elevator.


End file.
